Increasing the traffic your website receives relies heavily on your marketing efforts. While you can do a lot of marketing for free, most sites have dedicated marketing budgets to help them reach a wider audience quicker.

However, that budget changes yearly as market conditions change and more data becomes available. As such, marketing is an ever-changing science that sites must adapt to, or risk falling behind the competition.

Luckily, many business’s marketing strategies are on full display, so it is easy to see what your competition is doing. This can give you an idea of how much they are spending and where they are spending it.

Today, we will cover the trends that drive marketing budgets in 2025.

What Is a Marketing Budget?

Marketing budgets are outline budgets that break down the specific amount of money a company spends on a specific marketing activity. They also include the rationale for the money being spent on that particular item.

Having a marketing budget in place helps you better understand how your money is being spent. You can then compare what you spend against what you gain in different categories to help reshape future budgets.

For example, let’s say you notice that you spent the same amount of money on Google and Bing ads, but Google ads are generating more engagement. You will most likely want to decrease Bing ads investment and increase Google ads investment.

That is just a simple example. Marketing efforts today are very broad, thus it can sometimes be difficult to quantify.

It is also worth pointing out that market conditions and priorities can change drastically. For example, if there is one trend that is dominating marketing teams today, it would be AI adoption.

Nearly every marketing team is adopting AI to bolster its SEO efforts. Thus, every budget needs to be restructured to account for this spending. As such, budgets can change drastically sometimes to account for these new trends.

How Do I Allocate My Marketing Budget?

Marketing budgets wildly and largely depend on what industry you are in. Thus, there is not a one-size-fits-all solution.

For example, imagine your local mom-and-pop restaurant. They are going to market the business on a local level, which means focusing on local SEO efforts, which can entail things like handing out fliers, placing signs, or even renting a billboard.

In comparison, an eCommerce site would not do any of this. Instead, they would want to focus on purchasing ad space, improving their SEO, social media, and a variety of other factors. While they both will have a marketing budget, they will be incredibly different.

Even with this in mind, there are a few simple rules most marketing teams follow when structuring a budget.

First and foremost, decide on the total budget before you begin allocating anything. In 2024, the average company allocated 7.7% of its total budget to marketing efforts. As such, you can expect something similar for 2025.

Once you have this number, start breaking down the different ways you will spend that money. If this is your first time, consider looking up what competitors did the previous year, as much of this information is publicly available.

Let’s examine the most common areas in which marketing teams spend their budgets.

SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO continues to be a major part of any marketing strategy. While there are still concerns that AI search results will impact traffic received through searches, so far, it has not.

As such, the majority of marketers are looking to either increase their SEO budget or leave it the same as the previous year.

Now you may be wondering, how exactly do I spend money on SEO? It is a very broad topic and consists of a few staples. The first way to directly spend money on SEO efforts is to improve your website’s performance.

One of the few known factors of the Google algorithm is speed. As such, for a website to rank highly, it must load fast. Another technical improvement to be made is to optimize the mobile version of your site.

Google adopted mobile-first indexing in 2016, thus the mobile version of your site is what is being ranked.

Another key component of SEO spending is keyword research. While there are free options to perform keyword research, most companies use premium options to get the best data available.

Naturally, the entire reason a company does keyword research is to create content around that keyword. As such, content creation typically also falls under the SEO umbrella. That said, some businesses may separate the two.

Yet another way to spend money on SEO efforts is to bolster your internal and external linking. Having more trusted websites creating links to your website improves your site’s rankings, thus, buying backlinks is a valid strategy.

Email Marketing

While it feels like every day that someone is claiming email marketing is dead, the truth is it is better than ever. For every dollar spent, businesses typically see a $42 return on that dollar. As such, you should be using email marketing.

Luckily, email marketing has been simplified by how popular it is today.

Many businesses will purchase email marketing software like MailChimp which specializes in the creation of promotional email material and allows you to send out any number of emails daily.

That said, it can often take time for email marketing to be a big part of your business, as the true cost of email marketing is the number of emails you are sending out. Thus, the budget of a company that has 50 subscribers will be very different from one with 10,000.

Some businesses also hire professional designers to design the emails they send. In some cases, businesses will also design emails for specific customer groups. It’s common for a single promotion to have several varieties of emails.

Another expense in this field is A/B testing. This is a practice where a company sends out one email to one group of subscribers, and another to a different group. It then compiles the results and allows you to see which one works better.

Email marketing software charges a premium for these services. This often increases the cost depending on how much you add to the message.

Paid Digital Advertisements

Buying ad space is one of the most common components of a marketing budget. This is because paid ads like Google Ads have a clear ROI. After all, they can directly target the audience you want them to.

However, Google is not the only option to consider anymore.

A growing player is Bing Ads. Many marketing teams are beginning to allocate more resources to them because the space is less crowded. This means you can buy more ads for less money. That said, it also has a lower ROI.

We are also seeing more investment in paid advertisements on social media platforms. Many companies today are increasing spending on X because the ads are more affordable than other platforms.

With that said, advertisement spending will also increase drastically on YouTube as it is getting great results between paid ads and buying ad space directly from YouTubers.

Most other platforms will see budgeting stay the same. Again, these platforms have a clear positive ROI, but when it comes to platforms like Facebook and Instagram, other platforms have more growth opportunities.

Alternatives Advertisments

While paid advertisements are a tried and true way to reach your target audience, there are a variety of other advertisement options to consider. For example, if you are focused locally, you may want to consider taking out ads in a newspaper.

Assuming you are trying to reach an older clientele, this is an effective way of getting some eyes on a local business.

Perhaps one of the most popular forms of entertainment today is podcasts. Many businesses agree to sponsor these shows for shoutouts during the show, which can help you reach a lot of people. Many companies are spending more on podcasts in 2025.

Just be aware, that the more popular the show, the more expensive the ad space.

Remarketing efforts are also on the rise. This is a tactic where advertisements are sent to customers who have previously made a purchase. This can come in a variety of forms like sending flyers to their address, calling them, emailing, and more.

Influencer marketing is also on the rise, This is where you work directly with influencers for them to push a product, or at the very least, interact with the product, and hope that their audience follows suit.

While the ROI on many of these is less effective than other methods, they still get results and can help bring in new customers.

Community events are not only a way to retain customers, but they can also bring in new ones. These types of events come in all shapes and sizes, but at their core, they are fun events that promote your brand and help build loyalty.

Essentially, it encourages your existing customers to make more purchases and tell their friends and family about it.

Many marketing teams are ramping up community events in response to AI. The reason is that AI adoption is making human interaction rarer in the marketing space. Community events can help bridge the gap and add more personality to the brand.

The event itself depends on your type of business. For example, if you run a BBQ restaurant. Having an event on the weekend with live music and serving delicious BBQ can not only bring more people to the store but encourage others to try it out for the first time.

If run properly, not only can the events bring in new customers, but they can be profitable. Charging admission to the event, selling food & drinks, selling merchandise, and other revenue options are all fair game, but just remember to keep it affordable.

It is possible to get negative PR from a poorly run event, or an overpriced event, thus negatively impacting your brand.

AI SEO

Virtually every business is increasing its AI SEO budget. While the technology is still in its infancy, it is already making huge strides and speeding up ranking gains when used correctly.

AI can help improve SEO in a variety of ways including keyword research, content creation, performing site audits, and much more. There are a variety of AI platforms that can be used in this manner like ChatGPT or SEO AI.

It is expected that this will ultimately take over the SEO process in the coming years. Adopting it now is the only real option.

It’s worth pointing out that AI is also capable of recommending site optimizations for performance, and can even audit your current marketing strategy and provide recommendations. Thus, it goes far beyond just SEO.

With all this said, results will vary when it comes to AI. However, there is no denying it is the future of SEO.

Ensure You Perform A Marketing Audit

Marketing techniques change and sometimes the choices you make just don’t pan out. As such, it is important to perform a marketing audit to compile information on each piece of your budget.

If you notice that you are not seeing the expected ROI or notice there is a negative ROI, you need to reconsider how you are spending that money. In some cases, you can negotiate lower rates if expectations are not met. In others, it might just be best to end it.

Oftentimes, the most important factor with a lot of marketing is determining if you are reaching your target audience.

For example, let’s say you are sponsoring a podcast, but the audience shifts to an older following, thus, you are no longer reaching your younger target audience. This is a case where you may need to cut ties and find a new podcast that is reaching your target audience.

It’s also worth pointing out that trends can change abruptly. Thus, a quick shift in tactics or messaging can result in drastically different results even if you stick to the same platform.

The worst thing you can do is nothing. Continuing to invest in marketing strategies that are not working is simply a waste of resources.

Create Your Marketing Budget Today

Marketing budgets are an essential part of any business and the worst thing you can do is just wing it. Marketing is a science that requires research and acting on current trends. The market can rapidly shift, thus you need to stay active.

In many cases, marketing efforts will not always meet their target. This is where research comes into play. Is it simply a problem with your industry, or is it the way you are going about your marketing?

These are questions that no one can answer without doing a deep dive into the marketing budgets of yourself and similar companies.

Are you increasing your marketing budget for 2025? Which area do you spend the most in for marketing?